Chapter 35
AVA
“Why do I need to wear this to investigate?” Valen asks, picking up the orange ascot tied around his neck. He eyes it with disdain.
“It’ll help us lock in and channel our inner detectives,” Zav reasons as he drives us all downtown.
Celine snorts from the passenger seat and adjusts her rounded black glasses. “I was an actual detective. What channeling could I possibly need to do?”
Truth be told, I have no idea how we let Zav convince us to dress up as the Mystery Inc. Gang. Zav dons a green shirt, brown pants, and fake soul patch as Shaggy. His reasoning was he’s always hungry, but in this instance, for Celine.
Perv.
Celine is Velma, wearing an orange sweater dress and fake glasses.
Valen is Fred and I’m Daphne, because of course.
Zav even dressed Midnight up as Scooby with a little teal collar and everything before we left.
If it were a normal day, we’d all say hell no to Zav’s dress-up idea, but he was obviously trying to lighten the mood.
None of us are particularly looking forward to returning to the club, especially Celine and Valen.
Grasping Valen’s hand, I squeeze. He turns to me with a small, sad smile.
The poor guy continues to be haunted by his past, but hopefully we’ll find answers that will put all this behind us.
Whoever held him captive all those years kept him for a reason, and if they’re trying to get him back, he’s clearly very important.
We waited until darkness fell to pursue our investigation, and I pray it goes well.
Rolling up to the club, Zav parks in an alleyway across the street, and once he turns off the car, we sit in silence. The front of the building is boarded up and covered in yellow caution tape.
“Ready to go, Mystery Gang?” Zav attempts to lighten the mood.
“Let us go,” Valen sighs and is the first to open his door. Per usual, he’s at my side in a flash, opening my door for me.
“Hey, stop showing me up,” Zav whines as Celine steps out before he can get over to her.
“My honey is too independent to let me open her door. It’s not that I wouldn’t.
” He strokes his fake goatee, and I shake my head.
If we manage to make any progress in our snooping, it’ll be a miracle.
I’m not sure the red-haired vampire can take anything seriously.
“Nobody asked,” I reply, and he scoffs at me.
Celine pats his chest as we cross the street. “Don’t worry. I appreciate you for letting me do my thing.” She kisses his cheek, and I fake gag toward Valen, who smirks.
The small moment of humor sobers quickly as Valen and Zav pick both of us ladies up and stealthily speed into the club. Even though the police are gone, we still don’t know what we’re walking into, and we want to be as inconspicuous as possible.
I pull a flashlight out of my backpack and scan the room.
It’s still riddled with broken brick, splintered wood, and dusty debris.
What was once a chic nightclub now lies in tatters.
The ambience is a little freaky, if I’m honest, and I share a glance with Celine, who appears to be thinking the same thing.
It’s crazy to think that it really wasn’t all that long ago that we were at the club partying.
It was the first time she met Zav, even though she didn’t see him.
“Ready to head in?” I ask and everyone nods. Pulling on my big girl panties, I attempt to step through the doorway leading to where we want to go. Valen holds an arm out and stops me in my tracks.
“You do not go first,” he growls and I swoon right then and there.
Even though he must be terrified, he refuses to let me put myself in harm’s way and takes the lead. Zav takes up the rear with us girls in the middle.
The door creaks open, and we make our way down the hall. Celine has a death grip on my arm, and I let her squeeze however hard she needs to in order to feel better. I can’t imagine how she felt being locked in this place while Zav and I searched for her.
At first glance, it’s empty except for the occasional bug that scuttles across the floor. Gross.
“There’s a filing room down this way,” Valen whispers, and I resist the urge to take him away from this hellhole that haunts him. I hate that he has to be back here, even though I know this is necessary.
“Should we split up?” I hate to even suggest it, but there’s a lot of ground to cover.
Zav replies immediately with a hiss. “Fuck no. This place is an unknown. And after what went down, there’s no way we’re letting anyone out of our sight. We can’t risk it.”
I lower my head in acknowledgment. It was a dumb suggestion, but I want to get out of here as soon as possible, not only for me but everyone else. Technically speaking, I’m the only one who didn’t see the carnage that lay below the club.
Finding the room he mentioned, Valen leads us into a storage room full of cabinets.
Some lie on their sides with drawers full of files spilling out, others somehow survived the battle and only suffered a few dents.
Out of the corner of my eye, I see Valen and Celine share a look nobody else could ever understand.
The two of them lived out a horror nobody ever should. Celine getting taken and tortured was horrendous, and yet she still managed to save Valen, and the two of them escaped together.
“Are you both okay?” I ask. “We can take a minute or two if you need it.” They’re about to be sick of me checking in like a mother hen. I’m worried for them, though, and the dark place this visit could put them in.
“Fine,” Celine replies shakily and tucks a strand of dark hair behind her ear.
She left it down and long instead of in her usual ponytail.
“Look through the files and see if you can find anything.” Her eyes dart up to a vent with the cover hanging off its hinges and she shivers as a memory hits her.
Zav makes his way over to hug her to him. She grasps at his back desperately.
Not wanting to interrupt their moment, I get to work sifting through a huge stack of files lying across the floor in the corner. I situate myself against the wall, hoping I don’t encounter creepy crawlies, and settle in.
Over the next half hour, we each read as much as we can.
Various eerie sounds echo through the hall, and each time, Valen and Celine nearly jump out of their skin.
It breaks my heart to witness their obvious trauma.
The longer we’re here, the more they recede into themselves.
I know with her detective background Celine can compartmentalize, but this is a lot.
For the most part, the papers are based around the club and not about anything damning vampire-wise. I close my last file with a frustrated sigh and rub my eyes.
“How is there nothing here?” I voice my frustration. I thought it would be a smart idea to come here and try to get ahead of things, but it looks like I was wrong.
Zav stands from where he’s sitting and stretches like he isn’t a vampire in his prime.
“We have to go deeper into the tunnel system. Whoever was here covered their tracks well. They wouldn’t have kept the really important information here.
They would’ve wanted it more hidden.” He eyes Celine, who gives him a panicked look but nods.
We set back to wandering down the hall. A maze of halls and stairs awaits us, and we decide to go right for the belly of the beast and try to locate the area they would have taken Valen. The way he describes it sounds like a lab of some sort.
“Do you know where we’re going?” I ask him reluctantly, not wanting to set him off.
Valen swallows slowly, his steps becoming less confident the farther we walk. “No. I was so out of it down here I couldn’t tell you which way was up or down.”
“Zav and I can go ahead and you two can wait in the car if it’s going to be too hard on you.” I don’t like the idea of dredging up even more trauma for my mate and my best friend.
“No!” both Celine and Valen whisper-yell at the same time.
“We need to do this,” Celine adds after Zav and I look at them wide-eyed.
“Okay, as long as you’re sure,” I reply. “I do have to say, I can’t take any of you seriously in your getups.”
Everyone lets out a small chuckle and Zav puffs out his chest with pride.
We continue on, peeking into various rooms until, after what seems like forever, we find the lab. A sterile yet musty smell emanates throughout the room, and a small whimper comes out of Valen.
“I got you, I’m here,” I soothe and hug him from behind while he hovers in the doorway. He grabs my arms like a lifeline before pulling away to enter the space. I want nothing more than to rip him away from here, but I’m proud of him for persevering.
It looks like the police sorted through some things and took items for their own evidence. The cold storage in the corner is open, and it doesn’t appear to be working.
“They really cleared it out, didn’t they?” Zav asks while I shine a flashlight around. Dust floats in the air and I wrinkle my nose at the smell.
“Wait, I found something. It looks like something rolled under the fridge. I can’t reach it,” Celine groans.
Before she’s even finished saying it, Zavier picks up the refrigerator with ease and she bends down to scoop up whatever she spotted.
In her hand is a vial of blood with a label stuck to the side. She eyes Valen warily but reads out loud. “Patient zero, blood for vampire mutations round ZZ.”
Valen holds a shaky hand out and she gives it to him.
Popping the lid and taking a quick sniff, he shudders.
“Definitely mine.” I know he’s a vampire and doesn’t function like a human, but if he were, I’m pretty sure he’d be sweating bullets and on the verge of passing out, based on the expression on his face.
“Vampire mutations?” Zav asks what we’re all thinking. “They were using your blood to mutate other vampires? How does that make sense if you’re just a normal vampire yourself, albeit an old one?”
Fuck. That’s right. Zav and Celine don’t know about Valen’s angel status. He told me his backstory, but I kept it to myself out of respect for his privacy. I figured if he wanted someone to know something, he’d tell them.
I stay silent and wait to see if he wants to take this opportunity to say something.
“In my past life, and pre-captivity, I wasn’t a vampire.” Valen rubs his neck in a human way he must’ve picked up from others. “I was an angel.”
Zav’s and Celine’s mouths drop open, and shock fills their features.
A clownish smile fills Zav’s face in the next second. “Holy fuck. My Cupid nickname is even more spot on than I thought.” He chuckles, and Valen deflates as tension leaves him. “Wait, so you were an angel and then what? You fell?”
“Correct.” Valen nods. “I was looking for my sister before I was captured, but when I was cast out and sent here, I was cursed to be a vampire, which was rare at the time. The only others were other fallen angels, and there weren’t many of us.
” Running a long finger along the dust-filled counter, he sighs.
“I lived here a few millennia before I was captured. Whoever they are, they collected my blood and ran tests often. If you can even call them tests. I think it’s safe to say, based on what we just found, that they believed my blood could help with supernatural mutations.
What are those mutations? I’m not sure.” He rubs a hand over his jaw.
“Perhaps I should’ve paid more attention, but you have to understand: I long ago gave up on ever believing I would be free. ”
“What a bunch of sick fucks,” Celine adds and I nod in agreement.
“I’m not done.” Zav holds out a finger. “You were one of the first vampires?”
Valen’s brows quirk, not understanding what he’s getting at. “I suppose so. There were others before me, but none that I know of who were captured like I was. I was never in the presence of another fallen. We’re … different. I would have known.”
Zav advances on Valen and grabs his arm while bouncing up and down like a child begging their parent for candy.
“Do you know what that means? If they were using your blood to mutate vampires, you’re like a vampire father.
” Leaning conspiratorially close to Valen, he whispers, but is loud enough we can hear him. “Can I call you Daddy?”
Quicker than human eyes can track, Valen shoves him off and his features twist in disgust. “I am not your father. That is disgusting.”
“My dad is disappointed in me already,” Zav whines and throws himself dramatically against a counter. “This isn’t helping my daddy issues. Whatever will I do to get back in his good graces?”
My chest rumbles with laughter that quickly dies out when there’s a noise from down the hall. All of us are instantly on high alert, and my heart races.
“What was that? Can you guys hear or smell anything?” I whisper. The guys force us behind them and pause, concentration lining their face.
“Come out, come out, little rats,” a deep voice taunts from right outside the door.
Fuck. They’ve found us.